Valerie:
I have a funny feeling that as we all search back and back through our Ulster Scots we will find there was probably a lot of travel back to Scotland and to relatives and friends still there, and that down through the generations these ties were kept between families.
I also believe we will find that conditions and affluence were a lot better than we are lead to believe - yes, the famine changed all that, and the native Irish may not have faired very well, but I think the transplanted Scots were far better off and could afford to travel back and forth. Ships' passage was not all that much in our ancestors' time so I think we will find them quite active that way. No doubt as you go back you will find yet an earlier connection between your two families, and that this Stirrat (did I get that name right?) was a distant cousin of some sort.
I don't like using the "boards" to continue a discussion - I can't keep the original e-mail in front of me for reference. So if you are replying please send direct to me at:
lmjassoc@durham.net.
Talk to you later.
Sher at Ontario.